Carl Blare

The only way to do this one was to simply do it. Not much time for planning.

But perhaps the content will suffice, as we have Allan Weiner Worldwide from WBCQ The Planet recalling the use of radio in the 1950s to displace a pesky starling invasion.

We have a truthful scientific report from Brian Dunning of Skeptoid all about Nicola Tesla, separating myth from reality.

Low Power in the News has a pretty special scoop about the good luck of one of our radio friends.

The host said other stuff which was quickly forgotten. He talked, but I don’t remember what he said.

http://kdxradio.com/lph-dload.html

When TV cable suddenly started stretching wire in big cities, in the late 1970s or so, I happened to notice that Little Rock, Arkansas, had a very active Cable FM Band, including BBC World News, Bureau of Standards Time, and custom radio stations from individual broadcasters.

Coming home to my own town I found that cable FM was being used to provide stereo audio for major TV channels, but nothing of the radio kind.

Since then it seems nothing at all has been done with cable FM in this market, but the potential that I first realized caused me to register the call signs KDX with the intention of starting a cable FM radio station.

What actually happened is that KDX became a streaming station on the internet as well as a part 15 radio station.

Now we come back to the question of cable FM, these many years later. Does it still exist? Is anyone doing it?

Wikipedia hasn’t forgotten

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_radio

In a recent forum a reference was made to Frederick Emmons Terman’s RADIO ENGINEERING HANDBOOK, but after 15-minutes of looking I’ve been unable to locate that recent posting, although a search found many past mentions of the book in years gone by. So I’ve opened yet another thread…

Here is a pathway leading to the book…

http://openlibrary.org/works/OL7456730W/Radio_engineers%27_handbook

In this episode we mention forthcoming interviews with podcast producers, many of them heard on part 15 stations, starting with Radio Dan, suggested by MRAM 1500. To delay actually doing anything we hear a brief Radio Dan sample and procrastinate from there.

A fake production mess-up is blamed on “network difficulties”.

Former NPR journalist Bob Edwards talks about his book “A Voice in the Box”.

KROCKS shares a listener phone call concerned about ALPB Meetings heard on the radio being possibly illegal.

The guy from 1-Minute Zine Review does a review of “How to Get Into Radio”, a print magazine.

Self promotion brings Blare OnAir Lite No. 45, the “Changing of the Calendar”.

The really good material isn’t even mentioned here.

http://kdxradio.com/lph.html

My first try at a DIY (do-it-yourself) loading coil was done on an oatmeal box for the Ramsey AM25B, and it reached what seemed like resonance before I forgot what I was doing.

Two years later I built a triangular indoor coil-form from wooden dowels, corks and toothpicks, and upgraded an AMT3000 which today operates at full resonance driving a metal window frame.

But I remember the words of PhilB who said that we should be trying to build a better coil, one with very low resistance.

I think he might have said heavy gauge wire and an air core were two important ingredients.

I’m not sure which transmitter actually needs the better coil, but I’m going to build it.

You may be very old by then, but I intend filing a report.

Elsewhere I have blogged my plan to abandon FM as a part 15 vehicle for distributing audio to AM transmitter relays, because of the unsatisfactory nano-pea field strength provided by 15.239. However, while that changeover is engineered we are continuing to seek solutions to an ongoing problem with our FM relay system.

Testing has shown that the signal transmitted from our certified FM transmitter is free of artifacts from the nearby high power stations, but one FM receiver is reproducing artifacts from both full power adjacencies which are clearly heard in the background of our audio as relayed on AM.

We prefer to perfect the existing equipment rather than bear the expense of a more selective FM receiver.

The receiving antenna at this time is simply a random length of wire connected to the antenna terminal at the receiver, and we will be trying more carefully designed antenna methods to reject the unwanted interference from the other stations.

For curiosities sake the antenna variations and results will be shared.

Suggestions are welcome.